Enigma Variations
by moosemaster
Summary: Radar is confused: what is love? But when he starts asking others at the 4077th, he starts a chain of questioning that may do more harm than good.


Anyone know any Elgar? No? Well, for the unenlightened, the Enigma Variations by Elgar started out as him improvising on the piano, and his wife commenting on how lovely the tune was. Elgar started joking around, imagining how each of their friends would play it, an voila, the Enigma Variations began to take shape. It is, essentially, one theme adapted many times to fit various characters.

How does this apply to the fic? Well, it is basically one theme -love- that I've taken to be explored by various characters... and if love isn't an enigma, I don't know what is. First character? Radar! Woohoo.

Anyway, this contains elements of SLASH, as well as gen, so you've been notified. As well, the characters are not mine. Neither is the work of Edvard Elgar. So. No sue. Thank you.

Lastly, READ AND REVIEW!

Enigma Variations- Radar  


I can't sleep. Not like the not sleep I couldn't not sleep before. Some things a man just ain't supposed to see, ya know? Just makes me more confused than I was already confused, like how I'm confused when I hear things but don' understand 'em, like someone put a bag o' marbles into my head an' stuffed my ears with cotton an' every time my head moves, the marbles move and hit and clack against each other that I don't know if I even know what I knew I knew before they started makin' such a racket.

Everything I hear is an accident. I don't WANT to know, I jus' do, like nobody wants t' be here in this smelly place, but we are, an' that's the truth of it. Nothin' that's worth knowin' has ever been told to me by no one else. Well, Mom, but she's got this too, this way, this way with hearin' an' sounds an' animals an' people... but what I mean is just... gosh, people talk so much, an' half of it isn't any truth at all! The God's honest truth, ya know? Well, God never says anything, not to me, an' not to the army, that's for sure. He knows that words don' mean nothing, even if they are the truth... 's why he never speaks 'em. I'm learnin' this.

I'm learnin' many things... learnin' mostly how much there is out there I don't know. Five minutes ago, I KNEW what love was. Love was why I had so many earthworms an' why Fluffy 'n Bongo had two crates instead of only one... it was why my mom burned candles for my dad when 'e died, an' why she would never ever hurt me, an' why Patty Sorrel got all those red-heart cards on Valentine's day. It was pretty an' happy an' love-ly, like how Colonel Potter sees Mrs. Colonel Potter on the picture on his desk an' smiles.

Five minutes ago, I learned for myself a little. An' I don't know if I'll ever understand. This wasn't like seein' that kid once with 'is wrists cut open, where I could at least see what he'd done, or like leanin' on the door of Aunt Barb's room an' suddenly falling an' learnin' all-of-a-sudden everythin' there is to know 'bout girls, which pretty much explains itself, ya know? This jus' didn't make sense. It was like the war suddenly was in the supply shed, it was pain, it was hurtin' each other, what I thought. I mean, I knew that somewhere, in the back of my head, where the marbles left empty and calm, that it was 'making love', like the earthworms, but the look made my head spin, the people, the violence, the anger... it wasn't like nothing nobody's ever told me it would look like. Captain Pierce was lying on a pile, mattresses high up to my knees, his head hung down like I've never seen 'im, his eyes all closed, hair back, neck fallin' way back so I thought that Captain Hunnicutt was trying to kill him. They the neither of 'em had any clothes on, an' B.J. was lyin' on top o' Hawkeye an' shaking 'im, SHAKING 'im with his own body. It was that, burning hot, a single picture, not love... not picture-love like Colonel Potter and his picture-love with Mrs. Colonel. A picture, burning in my head and in my eyes -B.J.'s neck full of blood, his veins standin' out, the anger, as though Hawkeye was his doll- even after I ran away. B.J. hated Hawkeye. And Hawkeye's hand was in his mouth.

My heart is pounding, now, just thinking about it. Is that a good pounding or a bad pounding? I haven't learned that yet.

Five minutes ago, love was gentle and soft like lambs and rabbits and mice and long johns. Now, I dunno. See, they love each other. I know it. Nobody tells me, 'cause nobody knows, an' I only know 'cause I heard it. It makes me wonder, 'cause Hawkeye was afraid, but he's never afraid, an' B.J. was like a rabies-ed dog all mad an' tough, but B.J.'s the nicestest officer, even to the enlisted men. Why would Hawkeye be afraid if it's love -rabbits 'n lambs 'n stuff? So he's gotta be afraid of love, but that don't make any sense. An' B.J. was wild like he'd never been in love, but he has a wife, an'... an' it was two men, an' they was KILLING each other, an' it was love?

You only hurt the people you love?

War... is the war love? Or is it not love because it's not a war an' it's a police action?

Can men love each other an' hate each other at the same time? Can MEN love each other? I hope so. My mom, even, never taught me that, because it's not good, but love is good, an' it even says so in the bible, so is it the God's honest truth?

What is love, now? I thought once I knew, an' they called me 'kid' then, an' they'll call me 'kid' tomorrow, though I know that much more, an' tomorrow I'll believe them even more, even though it might only be the truth a little.

I can't sleep. Some things a man just ain't supposed to see. But some things, I guess, a guy's GOTTA see. A guy's gotta see, an' he's gotta learn, an' maybe love is killing, an' maybe we kill for love, an' maybe love isn't anything at all.

Colonel Potter caught me once with a medical textbook, an' he knows I ain't no medical doctor. He told me to wait, son, that one day you'll find a girl who'll teach you 'bout love better'n any book could teach. Love. He wasn't lyin', I know he wasn't, because Colonel Potter is a good man an' he was speakin' the truth that he knew. But he couldn't teach 'bout the truth he didn't know nothing about. I know that now. That, I KNOW. God's honest truth. An' nobody told me.

To be continued... 


End file.
